SLAM

Slam is the story of a young, very talented basketball player living in Harlem. At his new school Slam is still adjusting to the high expectations in the classroom, but also the low expectations of the basketball team as he had formerly played on Harlem’s tournament champs last year. Latimer High School is much more demanding than his last school and Slam has difficulty on and off the court. His grades are poor and his teachers perceive him to have an attitude problem. The school goes as far as threatening to take away the only place he feels comfortable in basketball. The book was written by Walter Dean Myers and won the Coretta Scott King for its success. I found the book to be quite interesting from cover to cover. Myers did an excellent job conveying details in the actual games, which is so often difficult to do when writing sports novels. I enjoyed the book very much and would recommend it to young adult males in general. I have already read some of Walter Dean Myers material and like his style of writing. He writes in a character’s specific dialect and uses a lot of slang.
Slam was able to take a bunch of ragtag basketball players and made them into a real team after they were able to build trust in each other. With the wisdom of the assistant coach, Mr. Goldstein, Slam learned to cope with his temper and become a better player on the hardwood and in his everyday life. Mtisha is Slam’s childhood crush and they are both very into each other even as upperclassmen in high school yet not quite dating. Finally, Ice is Slam’s friends since he was little and good friends now, but it just doesn’t seem the same to him. Slam is suspicious of Ice getting into some dangerous things.